abandonware games sorted by popularity

Dominium (1992) is an ambitious mix of real-time strategy and empire management, though perhaps “ambitious” is just another word for “slightly overwhelming.&rdquo...

Released in 2003 for Windows XP, Babylon 5: I've Found Her is the kind of fan-made game that makes you question whether it’s actually fan-made or secretly a pilot for a new s...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

Acquire (1989, DOS) brings boardroom drama to your DOS screen, turning you into a hotel tycoon in a game where the real enemy is... math. It's a faithful adaptation of the classic ...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

Rescue at Rigel is a 1983 DOS science-fiction adventure from the early days of computer role-playing and interactive storytelling. Players are sent to a space station controlled by...

Starquake is a 1988 platform adventure that sends the player into a dangerous alien world filled with platforms, creatures, hazards, and environmental puzzles. The protagonist must...

Known as Exhumed in some regions, Powerslave is a first-person shooter with a heavy dose of Egyptian flavor. Think mummies, scarabs, and plenty of mystical traps, all wrapped up in...

Back in 1990, Legend of Faerghail was what you played if you wanted a role-playing experience both grand and slightly unforgiving. A German-developed RPG, it combined dungeon crawl...

Superman: The Man of Steel is an action game built around one of the most difficult tasks in gaming: making Superman feel appropriately powerful without making the entire game comp...

In Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine, Keen infiltrates a massive space station engineered to obliterate planets like it’s swatting flies. This is Keen at his most tech...

In Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, tennis is stripped down to its essentials: a racket, a ball, and the growing suspicion that your opponent has somehow mastered the laws of physics...

Grand Slam Bridge is exactly what it says on the tin, which is both comforting and slightly intimidating if you are not already fluent in the mysterious language of card games. In ...

Trivial Pursuit brings the familiar board-game quiz format to the computer, replacing cardboard, tiny coloured wedges, and argumentative relatives with a keyboard and a screen. The...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

Slipstream 5000 is a 1995 futuristic racing game that combines high-speed driving with weapons and aggressive competition. Players pilot advanced vehicles across a variety of track...

Part interactive novel, part point-and-click adventure, Daughter of Serpents (1992) is one of those games that makes you feel like you stumbled onto a forgotten pulp novel. Set in ...

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is an action-adventure game released in 1999, developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive. It’s the second game in the Legacy...

Crossfire is what happens when you throw a tank into a maze, give it infinite ammo, and tell it to go wild. Released in 1982, it’s all about twitch reflexes and precise shoot...

Fantastic Dizzy, released in 1994, stars a cheerful egg with an unfortunate talent for getting into trouble. This platform-adventure hybrid mixes exploration, puzzle-solving, and l...

Highway Fighter delivers straightforward action with a focus on reflexes and timing. It throws obstacles your way with enthusiasm, expecting you to adapt quickly or face the conseq...

The title Dinosaur Balls might raise eyebrows today, but in 1992 it was just a quirky DOS puzzle game. Think of it as prehistoric Bubble Bobble: you fire colored spheres to match a...

Holiday World Tycoon is the sort of game that feels like it was designed after someone spent a bit too long staring at a postcard rack in an airport gift shop and thought, &ld...

Follow the Reader (1992, DOS) is an educational oddity that feels like a kindly librarian discovered the power of DOS and decided to make literacy a competitive sport. You guide wo...

Before the term “VR” existed, Knightmare (1986, DOS) gave you a taste of immersive peril. Inspired by the UK TV show, you guide a blindfolded knight through deadly dung...

If Tetris and a Rubik’s Cube had a weird love child, it’d be Brix. This 1992 brain-snapper is a tile-sliding puzzle game where every move counts and logic is your only ...

Heroes of the 357th puts you in the cockpit with a seriousness that borders on intimidating, but in a good way. It leans heavily into simulation, asking you to think like a pilot r...

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You gui...

Transland is a strategy-oriented game built around managing transportation and commercial activity, giving players the opportunity to create and operate a network while attempting ...

Toobin turns the simple idea of floating downstream into an arcade challenge that is much less relaxing than it sounds. You control a character riding an inner tube through winding...